Self Portrait for December 2009.
Taken with a Nikon D40 digital camera with plastic wrap affixed to the front of the lens.
(Special thanks to Dischord Records.)
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Tag: photos
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Film Days
These are photos I shot with a 35mm Canon film camera back in college at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. I’d estimate the year to be 1991 or 1992. I did not develop the film (it was black and white) but made 8×10 prints in the darkroom. I don’t remember what grade I got in the class, but I remember that I enjoyed going out and shooting. Thinking about it now, I’m actually surprised how long it took me to get back into photography after a long hiatus. (I blame Z2 Photo.)
I really enjoyed the environment and serenity of the darkroom. The actual waiting to see what would come out. Sometimes I think that’s missing in the digital world. Nowadays you take a shot, or 5 shots, zoom in on them on an LCD screen, see what looks good, and what doesn’t and then do all sorts of digital manipulations back at your 27″ monitor. Yeah, I do miss the simplicity of it all…
I don’t think I’ll shoot film again, but I may make an effort to get into that film mindset from time to time when I’m shooting digital. I think it may help the image making process…
I’ll try to upload more of these as I scan them in. Keep an eye on my Flickr stream for more…
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HDR Process (Red Barn)
I love Fall… it’s probably my favorite season. Not too hot, not too cold, at least in Wisconsin…
Fall should be a great time for outdoor photography, what with the colors and all, but this year, I just didn’t manage to get out in time to capture the magic of the trees, but I did make it out to Lapham Peak (this sounds more pathetic if you know that I live about a mile from it) for a few shots. This is one of them…
For the nerds in the crowd, my workflow for an image like this is such: I use a tripod to shoot multiple exposures (all in RAW) and then when I process the shots I choose the one that is properly exposed, as well as one that is overexposed, and one that is underexposed, and run those three images through Qtpfsgui to create an HDR image (HDR stands for High Dynamic Range) and tonemap it. The thing about HDR is that you can achieve some really amazing things, but you can also create some really cheesy images, so the trick is to not overdo it.
Once I’ve got an HDR image that is tonemapped, and looks very… uh, HDR, I then output that image for later. I’ll then go back to my original properly exposed shot, open that in Photoshop, and bring the tonemapped HDR shot in, and place it on top of the normal shot. For this one, I ended up putting it at 50% opacity, but you’ll need to eyeball it. I also added another layer, consisting of the grass in the foreground. Grass tends to really stand out in HDR images.
Once I’m happy with the image, I just save it out as JPG and call it a day. The purpose here it to get the detail that HDR gives you, without getting the “overdone” HDR look, so it’s really just enhancing an existing image with a little bit more dynamic range.
(Oh yeah, I sort of dubbed this technique “HDR+” a while back…)
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Help Portrait Milwaukee
The idea behind Help Portrait is really simple… It’s about photographers using their photography skills to give back to the community.
On December 12th, 2009, photographers around the world will be grabbing their cameras, finding people in need, and taking their picture. When the prints are ready, the photographs get delivered. Yep. It really is that easy. And by the way, we don’t want to see your photos. This is about GIVING the pictures, not taking them. These portraits are not for your portfolio, website, or for sale. Money isn’t involved here. This holiday season, you have the chance to give a family something they may have never had before – a portrait together.
Last year I did some Photoshop work for a family friend which involved fixing a photo of the family, with their grandmother, shortly before she died. It wasn’t a very good picture, just your typical snapshot with a point and shoot camera, but making the photo better, and something they could look at in remembrance was big deal to them. When I think about that, I think about how nice it would be to have a really well done portrait of the family for them to hold on to…
I’m really happy to see that Milwaukee-area photographers are jumping on board with this… Check out helpportraitmke.com for more information, if you can help in any way, it would really be appreciated. (I believe they are looking for organizations and sponsors to donate consumables for this endeavor.)
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Faces of BarCamp
I mentioned this project in the post BarCampMilwaukee4 Portraits at MKEDH4 and here it is…. not quite done, but partly done…
Check out the Faces of BarCamp set on Flickr and let me know what you think…
You want details? Sure… At BarCampMilwaukee4 Sam Dodge and I set up a “Creative Commons Photo Studio” and tried to get portraits of everyone there, with the hope of (a) documenting all the people at the event and (b) providing icon/avatar images for anyone who wanted/needed one. It was a lot of fun for us, as we like taking photos, and we did it quick, quick, quick! We typically grabbed people, took one or two shots, and sent them on their way. We shot with my Nikon D40 with an old manual 50mm prime lens. It was all manual focus, so some are a little softer than I would like, but hey, I think they turned out ok. We had two speedlights with umbrellas, one off to the right up high, and one to the left sort of low… Here’s the set up as seen by the person being shot.
Now here’s the bad new…. I somehow lost a bunch of photos. :( I swear I had them all copied and backed up, but somehow, there’s like 30 of them missing. I believe I can recover some from my memory cards, but I’m at a loss to find all of them. For this, I do apologize, and the only good news I can come up with is that I’m sure we’ll do this again at another event, so keep an eye out for the traveling “Creative Commons Photo Studio” soon!
Also, you should feel free to take the photo of yourself, and use it in any way you so desire, and you are granted full permission to do so… so don’t feel bound by the Creative Commons license it is published under. If you want details on all of this, just ask… And thanks for letting us take your picture!